


Soda pop for free

by adropofred



Series: BODMOD AU! [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Cis Character, Emotional Constipation, First Dates, Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, Matchmaking, Meddling, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adropofred/pseuds/adropofred
Summary: So. Newt is a tattoo artist. Hermann is a piercer. They work together. And look. Everyone knows how well that usually goes, okay.Newt has been pining for years, and maybe perhaps there's a chance that Hermann might be pining too? A little? But basically, he's got the pining thingdown, he can go on never ever telling Hermann forever and ever, because it's not like Hermannhasto know, and things don't change for the worse as they always do.And Newt would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for their meddling coworkers.





	Soda pop for free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lydkyd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydkyd/gifts).



> IT'S THE BODMOD AU, BUNCHES!
> 
> Required reading: _[Hermann's Dark Secret](http://lydkyd-art.tumblr.com/post/177186814353)_ by Lyd, who is an absolute goddamn genius and the grooviest cheerleader. This takes place about 6 weeks before their comic.
> 
> They also drew a little comic while we were discussing the idea behind this fic, which you can find [here](http://lydkyd-art.tumblr.com/post/176392386048)! <3
> 
> You can find sketches of wildly varying quality from this AU in a Twitter moment [here](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1033082321447137281).
> 
> If nothing about this story makes sense, that makes sense.

It’s Tendo’s idea, because of course it’s Tendo’s idea: _You’ve been hung up on Hermann for as long as I’ve known you and it’s honestly starting to affect my blood pressure, Ali’s boyfriend knows this guy and you’re going to love him._

That’s Tendo’s first speech. By the fourteenth lecture, the fifth threat, and the second bribe, Newt has a headache, a few new fears about what could happen to his fingernails, Tendo’s vinyl of _Rocket to Russia_ and a Venti Americano with three extra shots of espresso and five pumps of vanilla syrup, and a date. A blind date. Which doesn’t mean he’s gonna hook up with Matt Murdoch, sadly, he’s asked Tendo—not that Newt _wants_ to hook up, except maybe he kind of does, except maybe not with anyone who isn’t 5’9, half made of bones and piercings, wearing ridiculous eyeglass chains, and can only hold their gigantic boner for Alan Turing with the force of their bitchy righteousness. Not to be too specific. Preferably smelling like a cologne that would be called Mothballs! At The Goodwill, and a dozen cigarettes, and tea, and citrus, and. Like.

Newt isn’t _hung up_ on Hermann, he’s in love with him. He’s big enough to accept that. Only, he’s 5’7, so he’s _just_ big enough. It’s like a rollercoaster, _Must be this tall to ride_ , except Newt’s hours for Thinking About Riding Hermann (potentially into the stratosphere) are between 10 PM and 6 AM, so, no! _Must be this tall to admit you’re in love with Hermann_ : Newt’s been coasting the To Himself for a while. Sad. Sadder: he’s really not tall enough for the scary one with all the loops and everything going upside-down, namely, To Hermann.

Hence, date. Blind. Probably because Newt’s ugly and if Tendo had shown a picture of him to the guy in question, Tendo would have looked like an idiot. It’s cool, Newt’s used to looking like an idiot, so he can deal with the awkward five minutes of stilted small talk until the guy fakes an emergency.

He’s already five minutes behind the set time when he walks in, thanks to a lost boot emergency (under Britney’s vivarium stand). Newt looks at the small bar at the rear of the restaurant, scanning for anyone sitting alone who’d look like someone Tendo would think he’ll love. There’s a couple, three friends very obviously not here waiting for a blind date, and, honest to fucking God, Hermann Gottlieb. Of all the weird soon-to-be-trendy-then-played-out-then-closed restaurants. Hermann doesn't even _like_ that kind of shit, not that Newt does, but Newt didn’t exactly _pick_ the place.

“Bitch, what?” Newt greets Hermann when he’s made his way to him, smiling at him crookedly. “Small world.”

Hermann startles, gives him a Look, lets his facial expression program run through a dozen options in two seconds, and settles on his usual frown. “Newton.” His cheeks go pink. Newt wants to propose. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Blind date,” Newt says. Hermann frowns again. “Someone Tendo’s sweetheart’s boyfriend’s knows.” He swallows. “What about you?”

“The same, actually.” The frown deepens. Newt kinda wants to see what happens if it cracks and all the lines of code in Hermann’s head spill out like spaghetti. “Weren’t you… Didn't you have something… Someone you liked?”

Hermann sucks his lip ring into his mouth and looks away from him then, back down at his sweater, and that’s when Newt realizes that Hermann’s all kinds of prettied up. Minimal shirt wrinklage, an actual honest-to-God sweater vest, a blazer (!!!!!) and slacks. Blind date. Nerves. Oh. Well. “Yeah,” Newt croaks out, “But I think I gotta move on, you know?”

“Mmh,” Hermann says noncommittally, hiding his mouth behind his pint of beer. He blinks at Newt furtively, and yeah, maybe Tendo’s right that it’s all kinds of pathetic to be so hung up on a guy you kinda made out with only five or nine times and lives a few floors down and works a wall away from you. Potentially.

Especially if said dude is currently waiting for his own date.

Yay.

Newt heaves himself up on a stool next to Hermann and kicks one of the legs of Hermann’s own seat. “Come on, who was conned into this?” he offers with a weak smile.

“A friend of Jules and Mako’s,” Hermann mutters, and Newt’s heart sinks as he pictures a tall, tan, toned deity with gorgeous tattoos and piercings who could probably do one load of laundry in less than three days.

Fuck, people weren’t even _trying_ to play fair anymore. He probably has Jules to blame, she has a gaggle of army friends with biceps the size of Newt’s thighs. Mako just wanted to be nice, as usual, and Jules and her mysterious (and probably monstrous) friend had to go and ruin everything for everyone.

“Well, I should let you be?” Newt asks in a tone he wants nonchalant but ends up sounding like _Well, should we paint the den teal or mint, honey?_

Swear to God, Hermann gave Newt the sickest fantasies.

Hermann’s mouth twists down as he looks at his watch. “Well, he was supposed to be there eight minutes ago. So. I doubt he's coming.”

“Dude, chill out, he’s probably just late.” Like, really. What kind of idiot would pass up on a date with Hermann Gottlieb? He checks his phone. “Wow, is it already ten after? Yikes. We were supposed to meet at 7.”

“Let me guess,” Hermann drawls, “There was a snake in your boot.”

“Snake in the vivarium, boot under the vivarium.”

“Ah. So there was a snake _over_ your boot.”

Newt snickers and leans on his elbow to look at Hermann, the sharp lines of his face and the glint of all his stupid, ridiculous, gorgeous little solar system on his left ear. He wants to reach out and run his finger from Pluto to Mercury and watch Hermann’s cheeks go sun-hot. He wants to get a drink and talk with Hermann until they’re tipsy enough that Newt can rest his forehead on Hermann’s skinny collarbone without either of them going tense as bowstrings. He wants Alison’s boyfriend’s friend to not show up ever.

Yeah, he should have said no. The coffee was a sneak attack. Starbucks bribery before 9 AM does not abide by the Geneva convention.

As if on cue, Newt’s phone buzzes in his pocket with a text from Tendo, happily proclaiming _hows it going????? ;)_

 _not,_ Newt texts back, _hes a no show._

_think he saw i was ugly n left_

_Hermanns here tho???!!!_

_date too_

_:((((((((_

_Jules fault_

_She draggd Mako into this_

“I should go home,” Hermann mutters with another glance at his watch, “I’ve wasted enough time.”

Newt hums in sympathy. “My dude probably saw my face, died, and left.” He shrugs. Tendo isn’t replying.

“ _Or_ he was a much smarter man than I and left after you failed to show at the agreed time.” Hermann says, pursing his lips at Newt.

He just wants to kiss them, but instead, Newt narrows his eyes at Hermann’s. “Or maybe your guy’s imaginary and you’re stalking me.”

Hermann splutters, bright little spots of pink on his cheeks. “Maybe you should have worn something else.”

“Maybe—dude, I’m not going to dignify that with an answer, Aqua is a legendary band.” Newt mutters, cutting himself off when his phone buzzes.

It’s Tendo.

_Newt. i swear to fuckn Buddha ill kill u n everyone u godamn love even tho it includes myself at this point im ready for it.Alison will undrstand its that bad. Newt. HERMANN IS YOUR DATE. HE LIKES YOU TOO. Fck didnt u 2 go to college for like 29 yrs???? we sick of it. Brother. Just. Do. It._

“Excuse me,” Newt tells Hermann in a voice he hasn’t had since he was about eight years old, “I have to. Go.”

Newt almost makes a beeline for the door, but he goes to the bathroom instead. He wants to scream. Slipping in a cubicle, he smacks his forehead against the partition a few times before remembering he’s in the bathroom of a try-hard restaurant.

Surprise date with Hermann set up by their dick coworkers and Mako, who didn’t deserve to be dragged in this circus, and a nice application of various pickled bodily fluids directly to the forehead.

Newt bites the inside of his cheeks and screams a little.

“So,” he tells Hermann when he comes back out after scrubbing his face with a paper towel, “Tendo and Jules set this shit up.”

Hermann frowns. “Yes? You’re meeting a friend of Tendo’s girlfriend’s boyfriend, and I was supposed to see a friend of Jules and Ma—oh, for goodness’ sake, Tendo’s girlfriend’s boyfriend is Tendo.”

“Poly privilege,” Newt says awkwardly, “And I guess I _am_ friends with Jules and Mako. Well, just Mako, now.”

Newt doesn't know what to do with himself. Hermann is still frowning, not looking at him, a blush high on his cheekbones. Slowly, not speaking, he pulls a few bills out of the inside of his blazer pocket, downs his pint, sets the empty glass on top of the money, and stares at it.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last, “I have to go.”

Newt barely catches his sleeve as Hermann gets up and grabs his cane, cheeks still flaming red. Hermann doesn't stop moving, and Newt holds on to it dumbly until they are out of the restaurant. Hermann actually struggles to get his cigarettes out of his pocket before Newt’s two remaining brain cells connect and he has the sense to let go, then to grab his inhaler from his jacket pocket before Hermann gets his cancer stick lit.

He’s so pretty when he blushes. Newt wants to keep him forever.

“I fucking hate our dick coworkers and Mako,” Newt blurts out instead.

“Right?” Hermann scoffs sharply around a cloud of smoke, “I can’t believe the nerve! And to drag poor Mako into this.”

“Like, uh, mind your own business, assholes? Mako didn’t do shit!”

Hermann makes a little noise of agreement. Newt takes a puff from his inhaler.

“And the restaurant!”

Newt laughs. “Right? What was that special on the board? Cucumber soup?”

“Cucumber and coriander, Newton. For thirty dollars, a man deserves his coriander.”

“ _Cilantro_ ,” Newt interrupts him, “We threw the tea in the harbor a long time ago, Queen Victoria—”

“Oh, _Americans_ ,” Hermann mutters, but he’s smiling, a mini special limited edition version of the soft smile he gives kids when they come to get their ears pierced, the one that makes Newt feel all wobbly and full of chocolate frosting, except it feels special, and it’s _special_ , a little bit just for Newt to see until Hermann purses it away from his mouth to take a drag from his cigarette.

“Do you wanna maybe go eat something?” Newt says all in one breath. Hermann gives him a puzzled look, then one at the restaurant Tendo and Jules (and poor, sweet Mako) sent them to. “Not here, like, somewhere with real food. I really want a chicken burger. Chick-Fil-A or something?”

It takes about a month (or a minute, whatever, give or take) for Hermann to answer. “We’re too queer for Chick-Fil-A.”

“Popeye’s?”

“There’s always teenagers getting high in the parking lot.”

They go to Popeye’s.

It’s fucked up how much Newt just likes watching Hermann eat cajun fries and coleslaw and tenders. He dips his fries and his chicken in the coleslaw. It’s disgusting. Newt wonders if Hermann likes being the little spoon in bed. He’s taller, Newt would look like a backpack all draped over his back and his little ass.

He’s so screwed, it’s ridiculous.

“You dressed up,” he says.

Technically, Hermann doesn't really dress down outside his apartment. Sometimes he lets loose and wears a t-shirt in the summer. At the end of those days he has little spots of sweat at his armpits, Newt has a boner, and no one wins.

“Are you telling me or asking me?” Hermann replies. He’s rolled the cuffs of his sleeves up so his horrible use of coleslaw doesn't stain them.

Hearteyes. “Telling you,” Newt says with a mouth full of chicken. “Were you looking forward to it?”

Hermann looks startled. He puts down his plastic fork and blinks at Newt’s mouth with a frown. “I don't know.”

“Well. I’m sorry it wasn’t really a date.” Newt shrugs. “You put on your least worst clothes and all.”

“We can’t all wear the same band t-shirts from the nineties.”

Newt grins and brings his feet up on the shitty, sticky plastic chair to tuck his chin in the dip between his pressed knees. Burger, mac and cheese, and the cutest guy in all the galaxies, thank you Star-Lord and Poe Dameron, you tried real hard but you don’t come close.

“For the record,” Newt tells the limp pieces of shredded lettuce on the sticky table, “If I was going on a date with you, I’d have worn something nicer.”

When he sneaks a look up at Hermann, Newt finds him sitting completely still with a fry halfway to his mouth, little spots of pink on his cheeks, his lips parted. He’s just so freaking _pretty_ , Newt can't decide if he wants to kiss that mouth or ride the hell out of it.

“Do you _own_ anything nicer?” Hermann sniffs before stuffing his soggy fry in his mouth.

Newt does, that’s the thing, he _does_ , but everything that comes to mind was acquired from Hermann at some point or another, and. Yeah. It’s a bit of a web browser history situation: Newt would rather die than admit it.

“Yeah,” Newt says, stealing a fry from Hermann’s try, “My birthday suit.”

Hermann chokes on his mouthful and glares daggers at Newt as he coughs into a napkin.

“It’s real colorful.”

“ _Newton_.”

“Jeweled and all, I have a guy.”

“ _Why.”_ Newt smiles at him. Hermann takes a sip from his drink with his eyes averted, then frowns back at Newt. “I wouldn’t recommend wearing your _birthday suit_ on the first date.”

Without leaving him time to answer, probably in case he says anything disgusting, Hermann stands and grabs his tray and his cane to throw his wrappers and a handful of cold, pointy fries in the trash. Newt rolls his eyes and follows suit. He knows he’s annoying. It’s not like he doesn’t know it, or like he’d even talk to Mako or her boyfriend or even Tendo like that. It’s just. If Hermann’s going to keep kissing him only when he’s drunk, well, little a, of course Newt is going to keep getting drunk for kisses, no doubt about it, and two: Newt is going to keep saying Things That Make Hermann Blush.

He holds the door for him on their way out, because that’s also a Thing That Makes Hermann Blush.

The sun has started going down, everything looking flat and discolored. After half an hour in a restaurant stinking of grease and sugar, the evening air feels cold but refreshing. Newt watches the light of a streetlamp glint golden on Hermann’s piercings, the stones on his left ear glittering lightly. He wants to touch them and feel the rigid shape of surgical steel slicing through the soft pliant skin of Hermann’s lobe and cartilage. His ear always gets really red when he’s been in the cold for a moment, the steel carrying temperature. Newt wants to knit him a Peruvian hat.

Hermann’s hand on his wrist makes him jump. Newt looks at his face, but Hermann’s not looking at him, walking slowly and frowning.

“Do you smell that?” Hermann asks him, his frown twisting into a wry, amused grimace.

Newt sniffs the air and laughs. “Teenagers getting high in the parking lot,” he whispers fervently when the smell of weed hits, and Hermann nods and lets go of his wrist. Newt’s heart pouts, so he goes for broke and loops an arm around Hermann’s. “To be young and wild and free,” he says fake-wistfully.

“To be grounded for a week because you’re daft enough to smoke in your mum’s Toyota and stink up the seat covers.”

Hermann’s smiling a little, though, and he doesn't even find an excuse to shake off Newt’s arm until they reach the car.

“I’ll drive you home,” Hermann says, and yeah, it would be kind of a dick move to let Newt take the bus home instead when they live in the same building. Hermann unlocks the car, but he doesn’t open the door. Newt rounds it and opens his before he notices. “Or,” Hermann adds slowly, “We could get high in the parking lot?”

His eyes flicker up to blink prettily at Newt, and he beams up in answer. “Dude, _yes_.”

Newt almost knocks his head against the doorframe of the backseat in his haste to get in, and he catches Hermann smirking when he rubs at his forehead. Hermann grabs a cigarette case from the glove compartment and takes off his parka before sitting next to Newt on the backseat. He slams the door shut behind him, and suddenly it’s so quiet that Newt’s head pounds in his head. So he has to say something stupid, of course.

“What if your mom finds out and grounds you?” Newt asks in a mock-whisper as Hermann, parka spread on his lap primly like a blanket, clicks the cigarette case open. It’s some cheap old thing Hermann probably found at Goodwill, because he lives for that shit. The long abstract lines of the embossed pattern are eroded and smoothed by touch and time.

“I’ll have Marie Purrie piss in there to cover up the smell,” Hermann says nonchalantly, burning the twisted tip off a pre-rolled joint with his lighter before pinching it between his lips.

Newt can’t stop staring. “Like Marie would actually do anything you ask of her,” he says weakly, jamming himself against the cold window and digging in his pockets for his inhaler, “She’s a strong independent woman.”

Who scratches Newt a whole goddamn lot, but apparently it’s “Odd to complain about a few playful scratches when you’ve willingly been tattooed all over, Newton! She just doesn’t know you very well,” which apparently also explains why she sits on Newt’s lap or belly or throat to stare at him and make a sound Newt calls growling and Hermann calls purring.

Hermann seems a little mollified by the thought of his cat, and the few puffs he’s taken of the joint. Newt holds his hand out for his turn, taking slower, smaller drags. He’s cool, but he’s cool with asthma, so. Most of their time spent smoking weed together, Newt gets high half off smoking, half off passive smoking, and half off staring at Hermann.

He’s just so pretty, and weird, and mean, and he cares so goddamn much about where and how to stab holes in people’s bodies. The guy actually screamed at Newt when he told him he pierced his own ears with a safety pin when he was 14. No matter how much Newt insisted it was about the punk experience of sanitizing the pin with bad vodka and a lighter, Hermann had only screeched louder. Hermann used to wear little moonstone studs, back then, little glimmering dots on his earlobes and at his nose and lip.

He was just so _pretty_ , and Newt’s stomach flipped and he fell in horrible, disgusting love with Hermann. He makes him want to puke heart emojis.

“You’re so pretty,” he tells Hermann after he gets the joint back from him, clutching his inhaler to his chest as he smokes.

It’s dark now, and the air in the too-small space of the car backseat is thick with smoke. Newt can’t see him blush, but he sees the way he ducks his head down to hide it, the embarrassed way he pinches his mouth and blinks. If he wants to deny he’s pretty, fanning those long lashes of his against his cheekbones isn’t doing his case any favors.

“You’re high,” Hermann tells him, his voice even and tight, “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Bullshit. “Nah. _You’re_ high and _you_ don’t know what I’m saying.” Newt blinks at a piece of paper stuck to the ember unburning. “Because I say it all the time, so you can’t say I only say it when I wanna rile you up or annoy you or when I’m drunk or _high_.”

Honestly, the logic is flawless.

“Maybe you always want to rile me up.” Hermann brushes a stray piece of ash fallen on his parka.

“Yeah?” Newt says when Hermann doesn’t elaborate. “Of course?”

Hermann looks up to glare at him. Newt hands the joint back and leans heavily against the headrest, biting around the mouthpiece of his inhaler without using it. His mouth is so dry. He’s so thirsty. Hah. Thirsty.

“Do I look too high to go buy a milkshake?” Newt twists around to look out the rear window. “Does Popeye’s sell milkshakes? I don’t want a chicken milkshake.”

Hermann types something on his phone and twists his neck to look at him critically. “Given they don’t, you look high enough to go buy a milkshake at Popeye’s,” he says flatly.

“ _Dude_.” Newt groans and rubs his forehead against the scratchy fabric of the backseat. “You could say _oh no Newton I just checked_ , but no, because you just. Can’t. Be nice.”

There’s a beat. “Should I be though,” Hermann says wonderingly, sifting through the pockets of his parka. He hands Newt a few crumpled bills and adds, “Dr Pepper with ice for me, please.”

Newt sucks his lips in to hide their wobbling. “Are you. Are you buying me an overpriced drink after smoking me out?” He swallows. “That’s so romantic.”

“You have to go get it. And my Dr Pepper.”

“Love is a blessing and a curse, Hermoso,” Newt tells him, and he unfolds himself out of the car. “If I’m not back in an hour, avenge my death!”

“If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m leaving,” Hermann barks at him, then: “Dr Pepper with ice!”

Newt tries to give him the finger and drops the bills Hermann gave him. He pretends not to see Hermann facepalm at him, walks 15 feet in the wrong direction before actually heading for the restaurant, and sheepishly gives the cashier all the bills when she gives him his total. She’s giving him the super judgy eyes as she hands him half of them back. Newt can’t wait to give Hermann shit for miscounting. The cashier laughs brightly when he almost saunters out with two empty cups, then spins on his feet to walk to the drink dispensers.

“Dr Pepper with ice, Dr Pepper with ice,” Newt hums under his breath. He over-fills his cup of tropical punch and watches the sticky sugar water on his fingers for way too long, judging by the way some kid clears their throat behind him.

He gets Hermann his Dr Pepper, with ice.

“Fanta, stirred until flat, no ice, warmed under the handryer,” he yells at the window behind Hermann’s ridiculous head. He jumps. Newt’s heart jumps.

“Does this have ice?” Hermann asks after Newt climbs back in the backseat, even as the cubes clink inside. He’s put on music, jazzy electronic nu-disco or something, playing from his phone sitting on the cargo cover.

Newt pointedly takes a sip of his drink before answering. “No, I put gravel in it. That’s the noise.”

“Thank you,” Hermann says, pinching the joint between his lips to stab the straw through the lid, “Did you have enough cash?”

“Yeah, you gave me way too much,” Newt snorts, shoving the bills in a close pocket of Hermann’s parka, “The cashier totally judged you via me.”

Hermann side-eyes him. “I thought you might have the munchies and get hit with a craving.”

What? No. Hermann doesn’t get to be secretly nice in secret without telling him. He keeps doing it, like that time he took care of all the kids when Newt had the flu and Britney was molting and Fox kept pawing at his cage like he didn’t understand what molting was, and Hermann made Newt matzo ball soup and left him one of his handkerchiefs when Newt started crying because Hermann had made him _soup_ and he’d had to leave the room.

Newt only realises how hard he’s pouting when his jaw starts hurting.

Hermann’s cheekbones get really obvious when he sips at his soda. Like. They’re always obvious, but when he does that they’re _obnoxious_.

“Stop that,” Newt tells him. Hermann makes a little questioning sound in the back of his throat. “Being nice and pretty and having cheekbones and doing nice things for me.”

“I thought I couldn’t be nice?” Hermann is whispering, just above the volume of the music. _He must have imagined up this dream_ , the voice croons slowly, airily.

Newt swallows. “You’re a nice person in the closet,” he whispers back, because it’s true, not everyone should know. It should be kept on the down-low. Otherwise everyone is going to want a piece of Hermann, and he’s skinny, okay? There’s not much to go around.

Slowly, blinking drowsily, Hermann gives him a small, sweet smile. Newt beams back at him.

When Hermann turns away to light the joint again, Newt keeps staring at him, all golden with the flame held a few inches from his nose. It would probably be warm if Newt touched it right now, so he cups his drink with both hands instead and looks outside the window while he bites the straw.

The air gets heavier again, thick with pungent smoke, a man sings _I’ll try, I’ll try, I’ll try_. Newt takes a puff from his inhaler before wiggling his fingers at Hermann for a last go. He wonders what Hermann would do if Newt leaned in to smoke from his fingers instead of taking the joint. Probably get startled. Drop it. It falls on the backseat. The car catches on fire. Soon the flames reach the engine. They explode. All because Newt’s watched too many episodes of _Skins_ : a man in his prime blown to ashes before he could even crunch on the ice cubes in his goddamn Dr Pepper.

“Thanks,” Newt says meekly as he carefully takes the joint between two fingers instead. Hermann gives him an odd look, but leans his temple against the headrest and stretches his long legs a little instead of saying anything. He’s so nice. 

Time stretches slowly, song after song. Hermann finishes the joint, then his soda. Newt puffs on his inhaler. Hermann crunches on his ice cubes, one by one, his big eyes heavy-lidded, his lips pressed together as he chews.

“I'm sorry I wasn't some dude,” Newt tells him before he realises it.

Hermann turns his head slowly, slouched against the backseat. “Why would you be _some dude_?”

“For your blind date. I’m sorry it wasn’t really a date.” Newt thinks he said it earlier, but Hermann didn’t say anything then.

“Wasn't it?” Hermann asks, very, very quietly. Newt’s brain is swimming in his head, thoughts floating into it then right out. “Dinner and _drinks_ , usually, yes, of course, but—”

“Was it?”

Hermann blinks. “Was it what?”

“Was it a date?”

It’s so dark, so quiet. The smell of weed is cloying. A car drives by slowly, the headlights flooding the car for a second. Hermann’s right here, a temple against the backseat, looking at him and blinking through the slowly dissipating smoke.

Newt is going to die if Hermann doesn't say anything.

He sucks in his lip ring to keep from blurting out anything too extremely stupid. Whatever he did tonight and for the past billion years he’s known Hermann, there might be something there.

Hermann’s eyes flicker down to his lips, then back up at his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he breathes.

Newt laughs.

He can't do anything else. He just laughs. He laughs, and groans a little, and rubs his hands over his tingling face. Hermann makes a little sound of offense, high in his throat, absolutely fucking delightful, and Newt leans in to ask:

“Do you wanna kiss me?”

He wants to say it brightly, confidently, with the assurance of a guy who’s been Hermann Gottlieb’s go-to high makeouts partner for the past few years. It comes out small instead, quiet, the joke strangled out of it to leave the whisper of intimacy.

Hermann opens his mouth, looks down at Newt’s, closes it. He looks into Newt’s eyes. Slowly, he nods.

Newt gives him a smile he couldn't keep in if he tried. He doesn't really want to. “Are you going to kiss me?”

Hermann looks away and shakes his head.

“Okay,” Newt says, high-pitched with nerves, “Okay, okay. So. Okay. I’m going to kiss you and you can push me away or turn your head or say no right now, okay? Okay. I’m going to kiss you.”

Hermann doesn’t move away. He watches Newt shuffle closer from beneath his pot-lazy eyelids and opens his lips just a little. Newt puts a hand on Hermann’s forearm, lets go, touches his shoulder instead. Hermann’s eyes keep tracking his. Even when Newt leans in, Hermann doesn't close his eyes completely, not even when Newt can feel his breath on his mouth. He kisses him. Hermann closes his eyes.

He loves kissing Hermann. He’s so slow and sweet with it, and he goes all pliant and grabby, touching Newt’s hand like he wants to check it’s really on him, then touching his arm, the back of his neck. Kissing Hermann makes everything inside of Newt go hot and liquid like warmth melting oil, even with how little they actually touch. Newt feels nervous about the idea of _more_ , as much as he wants it. It has such an effect on him, just this, just their mouths sliding together, soft, slick pressure; Hermann’s hand on his neck and his fingertips in the hair that curls there. _The day Hermann puts his hand in your pants is the day you die_ , Newt thinks to himself, and he’s completely alright with that.

“Okay?” Newt asks against Hermann’s lips when he pulls away a little.

“Okay,” Hermann says, his hand already pushing Newt back in, his mouth warm from kissing.

Newt melts again.

Hermann tastes like smoke and Dr Pepper, bittersweet, odd. When he turns his head his lip ring knocks against Newt’s, and he laughs, but when Newt catches the ring to suck on it lightly he lets out a choked-off sound that makes Newt feel lightheaded and bold. He kisses the corner of Hermann’s mouth, his cheekbone, the side of his jaw, the long line of his neck. Hermann’s nails scrape at his skull when he tilts Newt’s head back up to kiss him on the lips again, better, deeper.

It’s just them, the soft sounds of kissing and the little noises they can’t keep in, squeezed out of the space between their lips every time they part before meeting again. It’s just them and Newt is melting into it, his hand going from Hermann’s shoulder to his hip by the ladder of his ribcage before settling on his thigh.

Hermann pulls away.

“Did I hurt you?” Newt asks, whiny even in his own ears. He grimaces, takes his hand off and lets it hover near Hermann before he takes it in his.

“No,” Hermann says, and he stretches his legs like he just remembered he has legs. “No, you didn’t.”

Hermann keeps blinking like he’s coming out of sleep, the fan of his eyelashes a tiny tickle on Newt’s skin when Hermann leans back in to kiss his cheek.

“It’s late,” he tells Newt, “We should go home.”

Newt shivers. “Okay,” he says dumbly.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Newt wants to laugh at the question, but he drops his head instead. Hermann’s hand strokes over his neck lightly. His heart is in his throat. “Yeah. I think… I just don't wanna stop.”

Hermann presses a dry kiss to his forehead. “Maybe you’ll get a goodnight kiss at the door.”

Newt looks up. “So it’s a date?”

Hermann rolls his eyes at him and opens the car door.

The drive home is quiet. Hermann is driving slowly, carefully, hyperaware. Between that and the pot and the kissing, Newt’s a little more than woozy, his mouth dry again. What if Hermann does kiss him? His tongue is taking up all the room in his mouth. The last of his tropical punch is tepid and watery, but Newt takes slow, careful sips of it. He has no goddamn idea where they are or why Hermann is stopping.

Someone knocks on the window. Newt jumps. “Do you plan on sleeping in here?” Hermann says, muted by the glass and sounding underwater. Newt looks back at the driver’s seat, then at Hermann, mouth agape. Hermann rolls his eyes.

“How did you do that?” Newt asks, as Hermann opens the passenger’s door and steps back. Newt tries to follow, but his seatbelt is broken. “My seatbelt is broken.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hermann mutters, rubbing at his forehead, “Have you tried unbuckling it?”

Oh. “Oh,” Newt says, because oh! _Oh_ , Hermann’s so smart. Newt startles when the belt snaps back and stumbles out in his haste to escape the car. The cold night air slaps him in the face so hard Newt can hear the sound, like a door slamming shut.

“Move,” Hermann tells him, “Come on, Newt.”

Suddenly it makes sense that Hermann stopped and made him get out, because they’re in front of their building. It makes a lot of sense. Hermann really is so, so smart. Newt hopes he can feel all the warmth radiating from the burning love in his chest.

“Can you feel it?” Newt asks once they’re in the vestibule, squinting at Hermann’s ears.

Hermann pushes the button for the elevator and leans on his cane to study Newt. “The love tonight?” he asks a little wearily.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Newt says slowly. Hermann sighs and turns away. “I’m glad you were my date.”

Silence. The elevator dings, harsh white light flooding the dim-lit hall. Newt blinks and groans as Hermann manhandles him inside. His eyelids are so heavy.

“Are you coming home with me?” he murmurs around a grin when Hermann steps in and presses a button.

“Can you tell me which floor you live on?”

Duh.

Okay.

Yeah.

Point made. Newt snorts and shoves his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes. When he opens them Hermann is watching him, his face all soft and sweet like he’s. Like he’s. Like. Hermann’s watching him so _tenderly_ , with fondness and something a little like pride in his big dark eyes. He blinks with a start when he realises that Newt has noticed his loving gazing and looks away, fidgeting with his lip ring, an ornate engraving on his cane, the cuffs of his parka. The elevator dings and the doors open. Hermann steps out like the thing is on fire.

Newt follows him. He pats his pockets for his keys and retrieves them just to find Hermann unlocking the door with his key. There’s still the little lizard keychain Newt had put on it when he gave Hermann a spare.

“Drink some water, eat something sweet, and brush your teeth before sleeping.”

Newt pushes the door open and steps inside. Little sounds are coming from the reptiles’ room, Fox pawing at the glass of his tank and shaking his tail against it like anytime he comes home, Matcha following suit with her annoyed clicking. Hermann clears his throat, like he wants his turn to speak too. Newt looks at him, but Hermann is staring at the wall under Newt’s doorbell.

“I better head home,” he says softly, “Try not to injure yourself.”

“M’good.” Newt leans against the door jamb. He smiles. “Am I getting a goodnight kiss?”

Hermann’s eyes go still, his cheeks growing faintly pink. “I don't know,” he says, sounding frustrated and amused and a lot more things, so many things, smart and pretty and sweet and mean and funny and ridiculous, because Hermann is all these things _all the time_ , “Was it a date?”

“So you couldn't feel it.”

Hermann shakes his head. “You’re high,” he says, but his mouth curls up just a little at the end of the word.

“You're pretty,” Newt counters, because they’ve established that already, “You’re stupid. For someone so smart, you’re really stupid.”

“ _You’re_ stupid,” Hermann answers, and kisses him.

Newt makes a little surprised noise of delight and kisses back, laughing and laughing and trying to tame the laughter by biting Hermann’s thin bottom lip.

When Hermann’s tongue brushes his mouth, though, Newt isn’t laughing at all anymore. “So it was a date,” he mutters when he pulls away to cup Hermann’s cheek and kiss him before he can answer, slower, wetter. His skin is buzzing, his legs going weak as Hermann nods dumbly and kisses him again, again, again. “Dinner and drugs?”

“I bought you a drink,” Hermann protests, looking at him reproachfully under heavy lids before kissing the corner of his mouth, the jut of his jaw.

“What? Wh- _oh_ my God you _literally_ bought me a drink, that’s—” Hermann kisses his earlobe, then the soft spot underneath “—that’s, that barely applies, that's like the bare minimum…”

Newt never finishes, because Hermann shushes him gently before kissing him again, slow and firm. “Really? Just on a technicality?”

“No, nope, it was a date, definitely, no take-backs, it was the hell out of a date.”

“See.” Hermann’s mouth falls open when Newt kisses the bare tragus of his left ear, then runs the tip of his nose from Mercury to Pluto. “Newton…”

Newt sets his forehead against Hermann’s shoulder. “D’you wanna come in?”

It’s instantaneous. Hermann tenses up, no longer half-leaning on Newt for support, moving back and opening and closing his mouth like he’s forgotten language.

Goddammit. “Not on the first date?” Newt says innocently.

“Not on the first date.”

Hermann says it shyly and almost shamefully, but Newt grins big and lazy and takes one of Hermann’s hands in his. “That’s cool,” he replies, “We can have a second date. And a third. And a fourth. And a-a—”

A yawn cuts him off. Newt’s jaw cracks a little. He blinks at Hermann sheepishly, but he’s just looking at Newt with that fond, private look like. Like just _looking_ at Newt makes him happy.

Newt’s high, right? Right.

“I'm going to go back downstairs,” Hermann says, gesturing vaguely towards the lift, “Marie is probably wondering where I am.”

As if on cue, Matcha starts making clicking sounds again. “Yeah,” Newt says, “I. Uh. I had a great time?”

“Was it the chain fried chicken or the illicit backseat smoking?” Hermann asks, taking a step back and righting his coat like he’s going to run into someone in their building at nearly midnight.

“You,” Newt grins, kisses Hermann one more time, pulls back. “Okay, okay, goodnight.”

Hermann’s looking horribly embarrassed. “Goodnight,” he repeats, and he presses his mouth to Newt’s once more before repeating, “Goodnight.”

When Newt pulls away, they stand there for a second before Hermann starts to walk off towards the elevator slowly. Newt watches him. Hermann looks over his shoulder. Newt slams the door.

Matcha hisses.

“And _that’s_ how it’s done,” Newt tells his cold-blooded children, his past self, Tendo Choi, and the whole goddamn world.

**Author's Note:**

> On Twitter @[callmealois](https://twitter.com/callmealois) and on ko-fi @[aloisf](https://ko-fi.com/aloisf).
> 
> Title from Aqua's 1997 masterpiece _Candyman_.


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